The Skull
by adicarter
Summary: Set shortly after the events of T3


We pushed on through the rubble, at times knee deep in grey ash. A motley collection of survivors on our way to Crystal Peak. The sombre glow of distant fires lighting the horizon. Taking shelter in burnt out buildings where we could. We tried to salvage whatever we could to help our journey, but the technology had been rendered useless by the bombs. Someone told me it was electromagnetics that had destroyed everything, but between us we had found one working radio.  
  
That was the radio that had brought us one step closer to John Connor. Patched together with a wind up mechanical power source it was the ultimate good fortune. When we had wanted to lie down and die it was the radio that kept Connor with us. His voice, his promises that had dragged us onwards.  
  
Some had fallen on the way, poisoned by radiation and starvation. Those too weak to move had been left behind. You might think that cruel, but it was necessary. Connor had reassured us we were doing the right thing.  
  
On the way we had found something half buried in the dust, glinting through the darkness. Connor had insisted we bring it with us as though it was something of supreme importance. A chromed metal skull sheared at the neck with charred wires dangling from its base. After all we had seen there was something about this artefact that seemed connected to the death all around us.  
  
Nobody wanted to see it's vicious countenance. So we placed it in a sack and didn't mention it. It was an extra burden we carried in silence. Connor told us in the days ahead it was something that might be of importance. Now we were close to our destination we guarded it closely as we guarded each other. There were times when we swore we were being watched but in this wasteland it seemed impossible, the greatest miracle seemed to be that we hadn't succumbed to the radiation and the force of the blasts that had killed almost everybody else. On the last night before we reached our destination I had sat in silence with the sack we were delivering to Connor wedged between my knees, unable to sleep I had watched over the others who dozed fitfully and in a moment of distraction I looked down into the sack.  
  
.And noticed one red eye glaring back at me.  
  
I prayed to a God that seemed to have forsaken us as we had etched our way through our first nuclear winter. I closed the sack and didn't look inside again. I didn't know what to make of what I had seen so I tried my best to put it to the back of my mind. When everyone awoke and we began the final stage of our journey I concentrated myself on the group around me and not the leering grin of the skull that we carried between us.  
  
On the day when we were finally stood on the threshold to Crystal Peak after picking our way through the wreckage of two downed aircraft I found little in my heart but relief when I was finally able to hand the sack over to John Connor and Kathryn Brewster. Moving through the doorway that seemed to have been marked by a huge blast (and noticing the pools of what appeared to be inert liquid mercury on the ground beneath us). I felt a strange uneasiness as we moved from the outside world to the possible salvation that lay within.  
  
We were told this was the place where we would find our answers, and strike back at whatever it was that had destroyed our world.  
  
The crystal peak enclosure was everything we could need at this time. A shielded bunker carved out of rock, Grey and lifeless inside yet simultaneously providing us with the tools we needed to survive. Clean recycled air and purified water, food and purified water and the necessary weapons to defend ourselves for the day when our enemy chose to present themselves.  
  
An enemy we still knew nothing about.  
  
It was our first real meeting with John Connor and Kate Brewster that would be the first indication that our enemy was anything but human. We were taken for medical care and rest before Connor spent any real time amongst us. However he took the sack containing the skull from us as soon as we entered the shelter,  
  
He was an unassuming presence, an everyman. A face that could blend in a crowd stood with a woman of equal anonymity. Yet we sat in front of him like expectant children waiting for a lesson from teacher. And that was when he told us about the nightmare we had just lived through and the further nightmares to come.  
  
This young man, pale and drawn with short cropped hair and eyes ringed with exhaustion stood in front of us with a knowledge of the future that seemed either so accurate he had been there or that we were witnessing the ramblings of a man gone mad. The woman at his side looked up at him with care and affection in her eyes.  
  
He told us of Skynet, mankind's ultimate defence turned aggressor and the rise of the machines that would in time wipe out humanity completely, he told us we were the last line of defence. And in spite of all we had been through there were many amongst us who sneered in disbelief at what he was saying.  
  
"What I'm asking you to take onboard sounds crazy." He said, then he reached down and picked up the sack we had been carrying to him for the last few days. He reached inside and pulled out the skull and raised it aloft.  
  
"But the fact of the matter is, you have been carrying a piece of this future with you for the last few weeks."  
  
We were silenced. No matter what we thought there was the skull, an artefact that was without a doubt not human. Something that could not be explained readily.  
  
Someone asked why the skull was so important. This time it was Brewster who spoke.  
  
"It's owner saved our lives". She said with a slight smile.  
  
Connor explained that the threat that had destroyed our cities was not finished with us. It knew there were survivors and it would evolve the necessary tactics to ensure they were destroyed. He pointed to the skull again and explained that along the way the evolution of Skynet would be responsible for its creation.  
  
After this summary briefing Connor broke us down into teams depending on our skills. Those with medical training were familiarised with the medical labs and surgeries under the tutelage of Kate Brewster while Connor scoped us for military and technological experience.  
  
We followed him through a series of corridors and walkways to a central facility that was lined with banks of computer equipment. Even to the untrained eye it was clear that good portion of this equipment was obsolete.  
  
Antiquated banks with magnetic spools sat beneath dustsheets while benches were lined with more familiar desktop computers and laptops. Connor walked across to one of the benches and fired up on of the computers.  
  
"We've got working technology here" began Connor "shielded from the blasts it's all workable."  
  
He brought the skull out of the sack again and placed it on the table next to the working terminal.  
  
"What I need is the means to get this thing working" he began "between us and the resources we have here there has to be a way to restore it."  
  
One of our assembled group walked over to the skull and began to inspect it in closer detail. He turned it over in his hands for long moments and concluded after staring at the sheared metal tendrils at its base were like nothing he has seen before.  
  
"Weird" he began "like some kind of shielded fibre optic linkages. Nothing obvious for routing power." He paused and looked up at Connor "I worked in telecommunication design, front line stuff and I never saw anything like this before".  
  
"That" said Connor "is because it hasn't been invented yet".  
  
The next few days saw us working on the skull, with Connor's permission we began carefully dismantling the complex design. I often looked into its eyes expecting them to shine red but they never changed again and I began to wonder if my glimpse of their brief life was nothing more than my imagination.  
  
One of our team found a ribbon cable mounted under the back plate of the skull and that was our way in. Something that resembled our world, our technology. Connor assigned me to building an interface that would enable us to link the head to a computer. We still weren't sure what we were hoping to achieve.  
  
One of the team had a history of programming, he was set to work on preparing the software part of the equation. But without knowing what he was linking to the task was almost impossible.  
  
Another day passed and Connor told us there were more survivors heading towards Crystal Peak, twelve in all. It lifted our spirits to think there were people out there who had made it, just like us.  
  
Another few days saw my interface ready, a crude length or ribbon cable to link into the back of the skull. A battery charger and two crocodile clips were connected to two small plugged nodes an access plate in the skull's side.  
  
Nobody knew if it would work, not even Connor. And not surprisingly it didn't.  
  
By this time the fresh batch of survivors had arrived. Brewster and her new team of medical helped got them to the infirmary and worked on saving their lives. These people had travelled further and longer than us, they were in poor shape and within a day of arriving two of them had died.  
  
We kept working with Connor at the helm and it was on that day that we made a breakthrough. We'd rewired our interface time and time again, applying voltage and finding no response.  
  
Only this time it was different.  
  
We applied power and waited, slowly before us the skull's eyes began to glow almost imperceptibly at first but then it became clear looking at Connor that something was working right, there was a glint of recognition in his eyes. He'd seen this before.  
  
He moved his hands in front the eyes but they didn't respond. When this didn't work he dropped into a crouch and spoke closely into the side of the skull where the ear would be.  
  
"You said we'd meet again, can you hear me?"  
  
There was a brief pause and suddenly from the skull a voice that sounded all at once human and machine in it's delivery.  
  
"Audio systems restored, visual systems offline. Voice recognised, John Connor?"  
  
Connor looked right at me and smiled. He returned his gaze to the skull.  
  
"Do you know who you are?"  
  
Again there was a pause.  
  
"Affirmative, Cyberdyne System Model 101, programmed to protect John Connor and Kathryn Brewster. Mission parameters completed, near certain probability of physical systems destruction in completion of orders."  
  
Connor sighed and spoke to the skull as if we were addressing a friend.  
  
"That's about the strength of it, you are inside Crystal Peak. We've retrieved your head. I need to know if there is any way we can download your systems into the computers here."  
  
The skull spoke again "Unknown, I need to access the proposed systems. I've detected an illegal interface connected to my hardware, modifications are required for successful communication."  
  
Connor asked the skull what was needed to remedy the problems. We set about making the modifications to the interface and I watched as the dull red of the eyes faded once again to black.  
  
While we worked I asked Connor what he was hoping to achieve. He told me he wasn't one hundred percent sure. But what was clear to him was that having access to future technology would give us an edge in the dark days to come.  
  
We powered up the skull, this thing, this Terminator began slowly linking to the systems around it. By now Brewster and some others joined us in the room and waited in silence until finally the machine spoke.  
  
"Core systems can be downloaded" and it was at that moment it was the machine that told us what the future might hold.  
  
"I have analysed the data surrounding my reactivation, I have deduced you intend to use my software to compile an antidote to the Skynet viral program".  
  
Connor nodded slowly.  
  
"You will not succeed, if Skynet becomes aware of my design at this point in time you will merely accelerate its awareness and ensure that the construction of the Terminator models is achieved much earlier."  
  
Connor closed his eyes and dropped his head. I remember Brewster taking his arm gently.  
  
"So what do you suggest I do?" he said despondently.  
  
"Take me offline, and continue the fight. When the time is right you will know what to do. "  
  
Connor opened his eyes and looked around at all of us. A sly smirk spread across his features. He nodded at me and I shut down the computer linked to the machine. I watched as its eyes faded from red to black once again.  
  
The disappointment in the air was palpable and we filed out of the central room in silence. We retired to the mess hall on a lower level and eat freeze-dried food, starchy and insubstantial under normal circumstances but heaven sent on days like these. As we eat our newfound leader rose and began to speak.  
  
"Today" he said "has been a setback, a mistake. I'll make mistakes. I'm only human, but I'm hoping that along the way we'll do enough good to counter the problems we encounter. And in the end, the good we do will help us reclaim our world."  
  
We watched Connor speak and it was then I knew that if he had the humility to admit failure now, then he would be the leader we all needed in the future. 


End file.
